December 21, 2011

We’re still working on the Best Albums of 2011 list, but in the meantime here’s my annual recap of my favorite live shows + concert photos of the year. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch as many shows in 2011 (getting old I guess?), but I still managed to see quite a bunch of bands [...]

December 16, 2011

(photo by cubagallery) These are 50 tracks that defined 2011 for us, presented in highly unscientific ordered list form, with Matt’s songs marked with a “-MG” and my choices with a “-TJ” next to them. To better spread the love, there’s only one song per artist. Click the links next to the track to download [...]

October 17, 2011

The Channing-Murray Foundation (home of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Champaign-Urbana) was a perfect setting for Ivan & Alyosha‘s exuberant gospel-folk tunes. I ran over as soon as Cut Copy ended to check out the five-piece band from Seattle, who were quite a bit more rollicking and energetic then I had anticipated. In the short time [...]

April 4, 2011

While compiling this mix I really began to wonder why Spring is the least gratified season of the year when aside from its complementary sneezes and festering allergens, it is surely the most beautiful. Who doesn’t like flowers or having to actually put some thought into their wardrobes–you can’t hide under those layers forever! Maybe [...]

February 28, 2011

The Dodos delivered an extremely promising album in 2008 with Visiter and even though their follow-up Time To Die didn’t quite live up to expectations (“The Strums” and “Longform” excepted), I’m still very eager to hear whatever the Bay Area psych-folk duo release next. With the two spectacular tracks out so far for their new album, not [...]

September 3, 2010

Photo taken by the amazing Anne Kieblesz – Flickr It’s been a good three months since I’ve intentionally spent more than a few days obsessing over my music folder, reliving every memory for a better sense of direction… but Summer has finally come to an end and a call for change is the only real [...]